The Trespasser

'For me the day is transparent and shrivelling. I can see the darkness

through its petals. But for him it is a fresh bell-flower, in which he

fumbles with delights like a bee.

'For me, quivering in the interspaces of the atmosphere, is the darkness

the same that fills in my soul. I can see death urging itself into life,

the shadow supporting the substance. For my life is burning an invisible

flame. The glare of the light of myself, as I burn on the fuel of death,

is not enough to hide from me the source and the issue. For what is a

life but a flame that bursts off the surface of darkness, and tapers

into the darkness again? But the death that issues differs from the

death that was the source. At least, I shall enrich death with a potent

shadow, if I do not enrich life.' 'Wasn't that woman fine!' said Helena.

'So perfectly still,' he answered.

'The child realized nothing,' she said.

Siegmund laughed, then leaned forward impulsively to her.

'I am always so sorry,' he said, 'that the human race is urged

inevitably into a deeper and deeper realization of life.' She looked at him, wondering what provoked such a remark.

'I guess,' she said slowly, after a while, 'that the man, the sailor,

will have a bad time. He was abominably careless.' 'He was careful of something else just then,' said Siegmund, who hated

to hear her speak in cold condemnation. 'He was attending to the

machinery or something.' 'That was scarcely his first business,' said she, rather sarcastic.

Siegmund looked at her. She seemed very hard in judgement--very blind.

Sometimes his soul surged against her in hatred.

'Do you think the man _wanted_ to drown the boat?' he asked.

'He nearly succeeded,' she replied.

There was antagonism between them. Siegmund recognized in Helena the

world sitting in judgement, and he hated it. 'But, after all,' he

thought, I suppose it is the only way to get along, to judge the event

and not the person. I have a disease of sympathy, a vice of

exoneration.' Nevertheless, he did not love Helena as a judge. He thought rather of

the woman in the boat. She was evidently one who watched the sources of

life, saw it great and impersonal.

'Would the woman cry, or hug and kiss the boy when she got on board?' he

asked.

'I rather think not. Why?' she replied.

'I hope she didn't,' he said.

Helena sat watching the water spurt back from the bows. She was very

much in love with Siegmund. He was suggestive; he stimulated her. But to

her mind he had not her own dark eyes of hesitation; he was swift and

proud as the wind. She never realized his helplessness.